The Spade Of Spartans
by Twi-High Anonymous Challenge
Summary: The clique in Forks high school is focus of interest of masters candidate Alice Mary Brandon, who came back to Forks to discover the trail of her own unresolved problems and write her thesis about peer pressure and teen cliques.


"**Twi-High Anonymous Challenge"**

**Story Title: **The Spade of Spartans

**Summary**: The clique in Forks high school is focus of interest of masters candidate Alice Mary Brandon, who came back to Forks to discover the trail of her own unresolved problems and write her thesis about peer pressure and teen cliques.

**Primary Players: **Alice/Bella/Jessica

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Twilight. You know who does. I am just having fun J

Alice Mary Brandon was well known in Forks High School. Every single student knew that the students counselor, A.M. Brandon was the person to talk to. Whether it was about a hormonal outbreak, a bad breakup or a cheer leading team falling out in the middle of football season, A.M. Brandon could handle all it with a win-win solution.

In the hallway, A.M. Brandon was easily mistaken for a teenage girl. Her small body and stylish short hair made it easy for her to blend in with the high school students' population. However, the eternal sparkle in her eyes was the one of a person who witnessed both success and failure, and thrived above it.

Every morning, A.M. Brandon sat down with high school cleaning staff and janitors to have tea or coffee with rolls or sandwiches. The high school staff usually had better knowledge of the situation among the students than most of the teachers. A.M. Brandon was aware of this and with regret, she understood why this was happening. Recent events in the educational system made teachers more focused on administrational part of their jobs. A.M. had problems with the No Child Left Behind program, but it was not considered powerful or competent in the school's hierarchy to speak her mind or argue different solutions for current situations with standardized tests that evaluated both students and their teachers.

A.M. Brandon knew she wanted to work in high school. As a teenager, she was often neglected during her education and was left to solve her problems with both her peers and grownups on her own. Later during her time at the university, she realized how essential the role of a high school counselor was. She switched majors to be more equipped with knowledge to help young adults in the most agitated and important years of their lives, so they wouldn't screw up and end up ostracized by the society for even a brief period. It was essential for a young adult to feel accepted and confident while stepping into the world of full-time responsible adulthood.

Miss Brandon, as janitor Taylor knew her, had her coffee with one sugar and a spoon of milk; she preferred to have it in the company of chatty, information-sharing people.

Her usual morning continued by welcoming students for their morning classes, making sure they all had their materials and that all the school buses arguments ended when students entered the school area.

A.M. Brandon was a reasonably young person willing to compromise and manage the colliding worlds of adults and teenagers, who were, in this building, considered young adults. Therefore, A.M. Brandon was sure that the middleman was the role for her, and high school was a perfect playground to enforce the rules of the one who was able to mediate every situation.

Alice Mary Brandon had a sketch of school cliques hanging behind the whiteboard in her office. Forks High School was small but had its own version of the mean girls, geeks, Trekkies, football players, chess club members, musical theatre groups and also a secret society. How A.M. Brandon knew all this? Well, she was observant and everybody loved her; from the cleaning staff and janitor, most of the teachers to the head mistress and supervisor from governor's department of education.

And of course, the students.

Some were brave enough to lovingly refer to her as Miss A.M. without being persecuted by the elderly teachers, who highly respected formal approach in their relationship with students. By some incredible method, Miss Brandon managed to get all the information out of all of the participants in the high school food chain.

That was her power and her unique ability: _knowledge to foresee in order to be able_.

Helping teachers handle the hormonal students was Miss Brandon's top priority at this point of school year. Projects and finals occasionally brought out the beasts out of both sides. The Middleman, or Middlemiss, was the shortest in the room while rockets of harsh words were being splashed from one camp to the other. She always kept her mouth closed while each side would present their issues. When the frustration came over both sides, that was the moment when she took over the situation. So far, Alice Mary Brandon was successful in mastering every single conflict between teachers and students. That fact gained her respect from school administration and all the teachers, so she had every support to refocus on students alone.

Miss Brandon's office was on the first floor, right next to the main staircase, which led to all the large hallways of the school. This was the best strategic location for the office with open doors to all of the people in high school. Every student, as well as each school administrator, was bound to pass it at least twice every day.

The question was – how did she make it all work? Alice Mary Brandon grew up in the area of small town of Forks; she attended Forks high school, but moved to San Diego in her senior year. She got into the University of Cornell and got involved in the secret society _Quill and Dagger_. It was the very first of the Ivy League's secret societies that opened its membership to women.

Alice Mary Brandon wasn't the one that scored high on the popularity ladder with rhetorical skills; she was more of an influential background member. Everyone at one point came to Alice Mary to ask for advice or tea and sympathy. Weather it was love problems or pressure of a prestigious school; she was there with her golden eyes full of eternal sparkle of hope and optimism. Always ready to listen and comfort, but most important to analyze the source of the imbalance.

Her time at _Quill and Dagger_ was training time. She was surrounded with highly efficient young people, who worked hard to get where they were, where they wanted to be or where their families wanted them to be. Still, living on your own on campus and attending classes of your own choice – that was the final stage of growing up.

Alice Mary Brandon was sure she had exactly the right people in the school to find the route that would point her to the secret society that she was once rejected from at the age of 16.

Rosalie Hale was the queen bee of the school at the time Alice was considered for membership. Rosalie Hale was also the one who did everything in her power to push Alice outside of the circle that would lead to the secret society of Forks High School. Like Alice, Rosalie was insightful and figured Alice to be too much of a threat to her position on the throne. Therefore, Alice was thrown out, crisp and clean.

There was one thing Alice Mary Brandon was not good at, and that was forgiving those who never asked for forgiveness. Rosalie Hale managed to use her wit and brains to get into Berkeley and take over the _Society of the Golden Rose_ within her first semester there. She managed to persuade the active members that the connection between the history of her given name and the name of the society was the clear sign of her predestined role. Beauty and seduction were both her weapons and finest qualities.

The humiliation of being pushed out of the sandbox with such a power play in high school made Alice Mary rethink all details that led her to the dump hole, end of the food chain. Lack of supervision or any kind of true involvement from all the adults that were in their lives to protect and educate. They failed, so she came back to correct that and get involved. Or so she would tell herself. After interviewing dozens of students from all classes and with all kinds of problems and conflicts, Alice Mary was sure she found the one that would make her quest come true.

Jessica Stanley.

_Ooo***ooO***Ooo***ooO_

Forks was a small town of 3,120 inhabitants and being visibly different was difficult, to say at least.

Being Jessica Stanley wasn't easy.

Up to the age of 13, Jessica was a well-settled kid with several friends and after school activities involving sports, musical theater and volunteering at community center. Turning thirteen came with certain developmental modifications. The twelve-year-old Jessica that was slender and flat was suddenly gone and replaced with the new version of the same girl with _extras_. Those extras were the problem when she was the only one with them.

Her breasts grew out of nowhere and by the age of 16, they were huge. Now, if Jessica was 20 and a cocktail waitress at Miami Beach, the size of her cleavage and all the other curves would work in her advantage, resulting in the amount of tips from deep-pocketed clients, and even some younger and good-looking ones. But high school was not a typical market place, and though Jessica could not believe this in a million years, she had what every teenage girl wanted - and every teenage boy and a grown-up man dreamed of in a perfect Barbie girlfriend or one night stand.

Soon, Jessica did not even feel comfortable wearing clothes her own size, so she started wearing long, comfy shirts that would cover her backside and also make her look huge. She was not overweight, maybe a few extra pounds, but the combination of the size of her chest and unnecessary long, stretchy clothes created a totally different image. It didn't take long for yesterday's friends to name her Juggsica, and it was impossible to run away from it.

She tried to ignore it, and right at the moment when she was sure she was over it - _BOOM -_ they'd hit her out of nowhere; sometimes in front of teachers who either didn't notice it or pretended to avoid dealing with an uncomfortable situation like this.

The very first day Alice Mary Brandon started her internship, Jessica's file was first on her desk. Belinda Stanley wanted to help her daughter but wasn't successful with it. All the tips about building self-esteem in books written about raising a teenager weren't sufficient. Jessica ended up crying every Friday after school. With time, she thought she became better at hiding all the signs of tears, but her mother knew; she knew everything except how to help her little girl.

So, Belinda Stanley used her position on the school's board to open an internship position for a students' counselor under the supervision of the psychologist from Port Angeles High School, who was also monitoring Forks High School students on a weekly basis and was an expert on teen depression. Alice Mary Brandon came with high recommendations and also with an ongoing project about consequences of peer pressure on teenagers. That was also her final thesis in university.

Everybody on the school board, from involved parents to the heads of the departments and the principal himself, were happy with this solution. Parents were demanding the spot for psychological help for their children for years and teachers appreciated the help, but they were all also satisfied that a new person was not to be an oversight. The principal was interested in new blood and less dealings with teen drama in his office.

What young Jessica Stanley wanted was to be allowed to sing the solo at the school's concert. She was good at singing and her large chest was hiding huge lungs, so her voice was a clear, lyrical soprano.

What was mandatory for the solo was confidence, as well as living through the audition in front of all the other potential performers.

That was where Jessica needed someone in the form of Alice Mary Brandon. In their very first session, Jessica opened her soul and spilled everything that was burdening her. She told her about her so-called friends from kindergarden.

The reverend's daughter, Angela Weber, was the image of the perfect teenager with solid grades, high level of decorum and respect for grownups. She was also the one behind all the vulgar names the popular clique had for all the victims. She was also the editor of photography on the school's paper.

Mike Newton was one of the few rich kids in the area of Forks. He was generally respectful to teachers and adults, just not so much to those girls he managed to get naked in between classes or during lunch. The back pocket of his schoolbag was filled with condoms and occasionally he would sell them to the horny male population of the high school. At least sex education raised the level of awareness of STDs and unwanted pregnancies.

To the general high school population, Mike was most known for keeping _a notebook_ of all the experiences he went through with the opposite sex. Having published stories in several issues of the school paper, Mike was well-respected for his writing skills. His threats and jokes of publishing _The Notebook_ after his high school graduation were connected with sudden resignations of three young middle school teachers after word of _The Notebook _reached the teachers' lounge.

Lauren Mallory was one of the betas of the lead clique. She was tall, slender, with silver blonde hair and the largest mouth. Her track record of disobedience and disciplinary issues included incidents from when she talked back to teachers about trivial things like weekend assignments and the amount of reading. On the other hand, there wasn't a test she was not able to score the maximum on, so that saved her when it came to her college applications. According to Jessica, Lauren was the PR of the clique and in charge of approving all the relationships between carefully selected members. Lauren's opinion was sought out in delicate situations, like who was allowed to ask Mike Newton or the football king, Tyler Crowley, out.

On the other hand, Lauren had no say when it came to Isabella Swan.

The police chief's daughter was the queen bee who took over seven days after she moved from the large city of Phoenix in her junior year. It was Jessica, actually, who befriended her on her very first day and helped her get along with Eric Yorkie, the ultimate know-it-all of Forks High School. Eric was also the one with the mathematical brain and the one who came up with the perfect combination of AP classes for _poor_ new student Isabella Swan. She never thanked him for it. Isabella Swan was large fish, she only swam with her own kind and she very soon tracked down the more suitable subjects for her high demands.

Alice Mary kept a very detailed file on Isabella.

From what Jessica knew, Isabella was the one with all the ropes in her hands. Ropes that were tightly tied around the necks of her subjects. Angela wouldn't even blink her eyes without Isabella's direct endorsement. Lauren looked up to Isabella and her ability to control pretty much every person around her, but most importantly, herself.

From all the information Alice Mary managed to get out of all the students who were stepping on the toes of the clique and from Jessica herself, she came to conclusion that the reason why Jessica was such a good target to harass was because she was never in control of herself, or even her own life.

The psychological profile of the chief's daughter was under a strong password on an online server somewhere in Belarus. Alice Mary took every precaution she could think of to withhold all the details collected in months of information hunting on several fields. The pale brunette with warm chocolate eyes and heart-shaped face never wore make-up or fancy clothes, yet her place was at the top of the pyramid. She rarely spoke loudly, but her clear voice always made people around her quiet down and pay attention to what she had to say. And though Mike Newton wanted her in for his _Notebook_ adventures, Isabella was ice cold to all the sexual references and looked down on her school friends who could not control their sexual desires and would let themselves be overtaken by lower primal instincts.

Isabella used to highly respect Lauren due to her intellect and high academic achievements, but Lauren had a weakness for Tyler and in his company therefore she lost all her credibility in Isabella's eyes.

Isabella treated Angela as a lady-in-waiting, so to speak. Angela loved sitting next to her and during school assemblies, she whispered in her ear all the new names for those out of their league.

After careful consideration and months of research, Alice felt confident to conclude that Isabella Swan was the new and improved version of Rosalie Hale, and most definitely the High Inquisitor of The Spade of Spartans Secret Society.

All the signs were there, and poor Jessica Stanley handed them on the plate to her, especially after she told her about an incident in cafeteria that took place in the first week of school after the spring vacation.

It all happened in the cafeteria while Isabella stood with Mike Newton in line for food just behind Jessica, and she made a leading comment to Mike about how Jessica would make a great model for the latest Dove campaign for her real beauty. Those words struck Jessica and in a gaze, she turned around, where over a dozen of her classmates were looking right at her, laughing at her expression. Angela was making sure the event was immortalized by video camera on her smart phone. By the end of the school day, Jessica was promoted to Juggsica Model and Lauren gave her several phone numbers of the adult industry agents. The video itself was put on YouTube and circled all the school blogs quickly.

Alice Mary had to live through that incident as Jessica's spilled the beans the day after in her office. Alice was as still as a stone and was counting her breaths not paying attention to the sorrow in Jessica's eyes and when the story ended with Jessica running home after her last class, Alice Mary did not speak. The stillness in the room worries Jessica. That was usually the moment when she would be the one to receive emotional support, helpful advice and promise of a better future from student counselor, yet there she sat; remaining still, staring at the papers on her desk her eyes blank. The body of Alice Mary Brandon was there, yet the essence of herself was far far away.

Jessica did the only thing she could think of. She called Mr. Keller, the principle and within a few minutes, Alice Mary was transfered to the hospital, unconscious.

Ooo***ooO***Ooo***ooO

_In 2004 the Hollywood came out with teen movie "Mean girls" staring popular Linsey Lohan in the lead role. The movie dealt with several of effects of peer pressure among teenagers and opened a very intense public discussion about teen cliques._

_Defining cliques as a tight group that usually has a strict code to its members and ways to act, we can, with high certainty determine that teen cliques tend to focus on maintaining their status and popularity. For instance, a certain clique may try to make it seem like the people in the clique are better than those outside, or that their clique is higher status that another clique._

_This research, which was conducted in a supervised area of limited number of students in a small town high school in continental US, focused on the leaders of the cliques, their most influential members and targets of their actions of maintaining power._

_The knowledge from previously conducted research was used to gather more information about the nature and behavior all the parties involved in current situations the main clique, working under the shield of secret society._

_People in clique often used their power to hurt selected others on purpose, either by excluding them, being mean, or both. Very often they insulted people by trying to "fix" them or give them "makeovers." Sometimes it becomes more serious and someone outside the group is targeted or victimized for being, looking, acting or being different._

_With this thesis, my primary focus was on the head of the clique and her dominant role in her ability control all the diverse members and the outcasts._

_The main conclusion is that groups like cliques are not brought together by a genuine interest in each other, but that they are organized around power and popularity. This particular clique gave a person who liked to take control a chance to be in charge. The leader I.S. (age 17) had all the typical characteristics by being both charismatic and controlling. All the other members of the clique relied on exclusivity and very strict internal codes to establish and maintain the idea that they are something special. The leader made sure they did everything together and had no tolerance for any member branching out to friends outside the group._

_Ending with this date, the leader of the clique and the most influential members graduated from high school with honors and left their home town for various universities across the country. All of them took over new roles in their new environments and from data available, they do not match those that they held in high school clique._

_As for the main target of derogation and humiliation-J.S. (18), graduated on time and left for prestigious university to peruse her wish to become a public servant._

_More detailed profiles of members and their actions are yet to be written for the final script of the thesis. _

**Masters Candidate**: Alice Mary Brandon,  
Cornell University,  
Department of psychology


End file.
